The largest playground in the Bay Area is custom designed for kids with a wide range of abilities and disabilities which is being installed by volunteers this week. The playground is named after Matteo who blind and uses a wheelchair, and whose mom, Liz Lamach, has spearheaded the fundraising. When the installation is finished, this weekend, it'll be the largest playground in Concord.
**Liz Lamach**
Editors note: This is a still photo off a video camera
4/26/07
{Photographed by Frederic Larson}

Photo: Frederic Larson

The largest playground in the Bay Area is custom designed for kids...

Image 2 of 3

Liz Lamach hugs her son" Matteo" during the ground braking of a new playground which is custom designed for kids with a wide range of abilities and disabilities. It's being installed by volunteers this week. The playground is named after Matteo who blind and uses a wheelchair, and whose mom, Liz Lamach, has spearheaded the fundraising. When the installation is finished, this weekend, it'll be the largest playground in Concord.
**Liz Lamach**
Editors note: This is a still photo off a video camera
4/26/07
{Photographed by Frederic Larson}Liz Lamach takes a break to hug her son" Matteo" while working on a new playground that is custom designed for kids with a wide range of abilities and disabilities which is being installed by hundreds volunteers this week. The playground is named after Matteo who blind and uses a wheelchair, and whose mom, Liz Lamach, has spearheaded the fundraising. When the installation is finished, this weekend, it'll be the largest playground in Concord.
**Liz Lamach****Matteo Lamach*** 4/26/07
{Photographed by Frederic Larson}

Photo: Frederic Larson

Liz Lamach hugs her son" Matteo" during the ground braking of a new...

Image 3 of 3

A new playground in Concord that's custom designed for kids with a wide range of abilities and disabilities is being installed by hundreds of volunteers this week. It's named after Matteo, a boy who's blind and uses a wheelchair, and whose mom, Liz Lamach, has spearheaded the fundraising. When the installation is finished, this weekend, it'll be the largest playground in Concord.
**Liz Lamach**
4/26/07
{Photographed by Frederic Larson} MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT

Photo: Frederic Larson

A new playground in Concord that's custom designed for kids with a...

CONCORD / A playground for all to play on / Matteo's Dream is a place for the disabled to slide down slides, wheel to a tree house

What may be the nation's largest and most elaborate playground for disabled kids is rising this week in Concord, thanks to an army of volunteers moved by the plight of a 7-year-old boy in a wheelchair.

More than 2,000 people are toting lumber, gluing tile mosaics and hammering castle spires to erect a huge play-structure complex that covers 12,000 square feet, roughly 10 times the size of a typical Bay Area home. Last weekend more than 1,400 people showed up, even though it was raining.

"The only time you usually see this number of people volunteering together is after a disaster like a hurricane or earthquake," said Michael Cohen, a project manager from Leathers & Associates, a New York firm hired to direct the effort. "It's amazing to see this kind of community support."

Dubbed Matteo's Dream after a 7-year-old Concord boy who's blind and uses a wheelchair, the playground is scheduled to be completed Sunday and, after installation of a rubber ground mat, to open on May 16.

"I'm speechless. This is bigger and more spectacular than anything I ever imagined," said Liz Lamach, Matteo's mother, who has been planning and fundraising for the playground for six years. "I'm overwhelmed."

It includes a tree house accessible to wheelchairs via a long, curving ramp, as well as textured slides for blind kids and a colossal rocking boat for kids in wheelchairs to roll freely.

The ramps and pathways are wide enough for two wheelchairs to pass. It includes metal, in addition to plastic, slides so kids with plastic ear implants can ride without static electricity damaging their implants.

The entire 12,000-square-foot area will be surfaced with rubber, rather than bark or sand, so wheelchairs and walkers can get around easily. It also includes wide open spaces for kids in wheelchairs to play ball safely.

Because disabled kids tend to get easily overheated, Matteo's Dream will include water misters and a shady cool-down area.

Dennis Wille, a designer with Leathers & Associates, which has built more than 1,600 custom playgrounds around the world, said to his knowledge the scope and mission of Matteo's Dream is unprecedented.

"The accessibility is really pushed to an extreme," he said. "It's certainly something we've never done before."

Matteo's Dream started not long after Lamach and her partner adopted the cheerful boy with big ears and a contagious grin in 2000. Matteo, who is blind and mentally disabled, uses a wheelchair and has a pituitary gland disorder, was in Los Angeles seeing a specialist when Lamach saw her first wheelchair-accessible playground.

She was impressed but thought she could do a lot better. The pathways, for example, were only wide enough for one wheelchair.

"I expect people will say that about Matteo's Dream, as well," Lamach said. "And someone will improve on our idea, and things will just keep getting better and better."

Lamach asked her Lions Club chapter if they'd be interested in helping her build a wheelchair-accessible playground in Concord, and they enthusiastically agreed.

Lamach and other volunteers conducted 2,000 interviews with disabled kids and their parents and doctors around the Bay Area about what they'd like in a playground. They hired Leathers & Associates to come up with a custom design and organize the army of volunteers.

The price tag not counting the land: $750,000, about half a million more than a regular playground.

Then the fundraising began. The City of Concord agreed to chip in about $230,000 and donate the land, the northeast corner of Hillcrest Community Park near the intersection of Highways 242 and 4.

The rest of the money came from the Lions Club, the Lesher Foundation, private grants and individual donors.

"The minute we heard about it, we knew it was a wonderful thing to do," said Ron Hudson, a Lions Club member who has been a longtime supporter of Matteo's Dream. "Even though I live in Fremont, once this thing is built I'm coming to play on it."

To keep costs down, the installation is being done almost entirely by volunteers recruited by the Lions Club and other social service organizations from their membership, schools, neighborhoods and churches. Dozens of East Bay companies allowed their employees paid time off last week to help. Many materials were donated.

Dean Cofer, a co-worker of Lamach's, has helped out from the beginning.

"I got involved when Liz pointed out that there are kids who have never been down a slide," he said. "How can you come up with a better project than that?"

Noah Udlis, an 11-year-old special-needs child from Pleasant Hill, welcomed the new facility. "It'll sure do something for people who need it," he said Wednesday during a lunch break from working on the structure with his family.

The playground is expected someday to be superseded in size by another wheelchair-accessible playground coming to Central Park in Fremont. Funded by skater Kristi Yamaguchi's Always Dream Foundation and approved last week by the Fremont City Council, the playground is scheduled to be completed by summer 2008, said Always Dream Chief Executive Jim Adler. It also will have features for kids who are not disabled, such swings and a climbing wall.

The Bay Area already has at least one other playground for disabled kids, a smaller facility at Roberts Regional Park in Oakland.

"If you bring children together to play, before they learn to hate, then they won't hate as adults," Lamach said. "Pretty soon it won't seem different to be disabled. Kids will realize that disabled kids have something to offer, too."

The variety of accessible features at Matteo's Dream won't just benefit kids. It will also help grandparents who use walkers, parents in wheelchairs and anyone else who has difficulty moving.

Ironically, Matteo's disabilities will prevent him from using many of the playground amenities unassisted. But that doesn't mean he won't enjoy the landmark playground built in his honor.

"He loves to be in the middle of kids playing," Lamach said. "He's pretty thrilled about this, even though he doesn't quite get the concept.

"Will he be here on opening day? You better believe it," she said. "I'll go down that slide and Matteo will be on my lap."